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Oil sands news

Suncor announced production from its oil sands facility averaged approximately 306,000 bpd in June. Reported production included Suncor’s proprietary production of sweet and sour synthetic crude oil, diesel, non-upgraded bitumen sold directly to market, and products derived from bitumen received from Petro-Canada for processing on a fee-for-service basis.

Connacher Oil and Gas resumed field construction with its steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) facility at its Algar oil sands project after temporarily suspending the project last December. The company estimates it will take roughly 275 days to complete construction activities and the drilling of 15 SAGD well pairs. After construction, there will be a 30-day requisite commissioning period and a 90-day steam circulation phase prior to commencement of production. Full plant capacity is estimated to be 10,000 bpd of bitumen. Due to either cancellation or deferral of other oil sands projects in the area, the company said actual costs for labour, services and equipment may be lower than the cost estimates used in the budget for Algar.

Imperial Oil has awarded a contract to Fluor Corp. to build infrastructure and facilities for the first phase of its Kearl oil sands project. Fluor stated it will book roughly $1.5 billion in revenue this year from Kearl.

Husky Energy announced the company has no intention of shutting down its Tucker in situ oil sands project. The project currently produces between 3,000 to 5,000 bpd of bitumen and by year-end the company is hoping for exit volumes of 5,000 to 6,000 bpd of bitumen.